by Jon Lackman | 15 September 2009 | Uncategorized
With this quote from Morelli — “. . . [the] art historian will gradually disappear, no great loss either, you will admit” — the Dictionary of Art Historians injects welcome notes of modesty and humor into what could otherwise come off as a po-faced celebration of largely trivial figures.
We’ve often linked to the Dictionary, but never stopped to remark upon its impressiveness. In the last year alone it’s added 66 new entries to its collection of profiles. It was begun in 1986 as a card file by art librarian and bibliographer Lee Sorensen, who still directs the project and now makes use of a few helpers.
We’ve found it indispensable. As Sorensen notes, “Biographical and methodological information about art historians can be difficult to find. Tucked away in obscure obituaries or foreign-language Festschriften, the basics of where an art historian trained or who his/her major influence was, or even what methodology the scholarship employs are often impossible to discern.”
Amen.
[Tangential question: what would be the best collective noun to designate a group of art historians? A punctum? A vernissage? An intaglio? A carousel? I seem to remember the latter was first suggested by James Elkins in one of his books.]
